


Saints

by petricholour



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Foggy tries to be A Good Friend, M/M, Matt tries to be A Good Friend, just angst and anger and tension, they're pissing each other off so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6106528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petricholour/pseuds/petricholour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy's a good person. Matt's a good person. There are no winners in this, only two men trying to be best buds, even when every day brings Foggy a sliced-up Matt and his saint's thirst for punishment, and every day brings Matt an anxious Foggy who'll be damned if he won't be as good a man as his best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Matt and Foggy are two angry muses. I honestly don't control this shit.

There's a slight gap in the curtains, Foggy realises, and the shifting light of the cars passing underneath the building shine through it. They're little squares of pale yellow that fall onto the opposite wall with its light switches. The squares land and then move down, eventually cuffed by the windowsill. If he squints a little it looks like it's the switchboard that's melting down the wall, dislodged from its place. It slides down like egg yolk, and he tracks it lazily with his eyes thinking about clocks and paintings and a branch. Absently, he nibbles on the inside of his cheek and realises this is something he can do that Matt can't.

His half-asleep mind is pleased. Dali. Something egg, was it? Between one breath and another his eyes slide shut, and he dreams about a very large paintbrush with bristles that are edible. A man sighs _Franklin, honestly_ -

The alarm goes off at 6.30. He grunts and presses the little button till the phone dies. Ten minutes later, his back-up alarm in the bathroom chimes in. This is it, he thinks, and drags his carcass out of bed. After he's showered and run a tentative hand through his wet hair, he thumbs at his phone.

"Foggy" Matt croaks. "Whatimesit?"

"Noon, actually."

"You're pouring Froot Loops in your Jurassic Park bowl."

"Well, they're off brand Froot Loops so 3/10 and if you're coherent enough to form full sentences you're fit to get your ass to the office."

"Mpfh", Matt replies. "You sound like you didn't sleep too well."

" _Matt_ ". His voice is clipped.

"Fine."

 

\--

 

Foggy gets there first, and it's nice. The sun slants through the windows, dividing approximately the lower half of the office into a vat of liquid brilliance. That'll be hell when summer sets in. Foggy slides his messenger bag onto his desk and roots out his softball from the top drawer, easing out bits of imaginary grit from its seams.

He's worked himself into a mellow mood bouncing it off the wall above the photocopier when Matt ducks in. His cane is folded and his glasses are off. Foggy raises an eyebrow questioningly. If Matt registers movements as small as that, he doesn't give any indication of it. He dumps his own stuff in the opposite cubicle and comes loping into Foggy's. Silently he raises his hand in the air, loosely cupped.

There's a grin on his lips that Foggy finds hard to parse - it's shy, like Matt can hardly believe his luck, and challenging at the same time. Foggy lobs the ball at him gently, not giving in to the intense need to do the opposite. _Oh r_ _eally_? Matt's mouth compresses . He seems to test the weight in his hand for a moment before he hurls the softball at Foggy's head. In earnest. "Shit!" Foggy yelps, catching it neatly inches from the window.

When he looks back, Matt has lost the timidity. For good measure, he reaches up to loosen his tie, which is when Foggy thinks, _alright_.

For a while there is no sound from the corner office on the thrid floor of Bleeker Building but the soft thwump of leather hitting palm. Foggy wasn't the star pitcher of his school for nothing, Matt realises, as his breathing evens out even as he exerts himself more. Though he always makes the catch, hearing the shift and grasp of Foggy's toes inside his shoes that tells him the direction the throw will go, he's a little taken aback at the force. Foggy's not, to put it mildly, a lithe or muscular man. Or so Matt had thought, estimating from weight and eating habits and the plush feeling of Foggy's side on the occasional drunken night out. But his arm recoils and snaps forward like a cobra, packing force into the ball that's not to be sneezed at.

Matt's armpits are starting to run now. Foggy's been sweating a while, but then again he has his back to the open window. He smells like sun-baked polyester from his jacket, and shoe polish and salt. Matt feels. Optimistic. More so than usual. As if everything was going to be okay despite the huge row they'd had last week that Foggy resolutely brushed off. Suspicious of his forgiveness as only a true Catholic could be, Matt has been treading carefully around Foggy's edges, because Foggy seemed to have decided he was going to "cooperate with Matt" and "bury the hatchet" even if it caused him peptic distress.

 _Whumph_! This time Foggy's throw has an edge to it. Matt eases out a smile at him that isn't really a smile, nodding. Glad Foggy's working out his anxiety and anger.

 _Well fuck you_ , Foggy thinks. _Who do you think you are, condescending to me?_ He aims for Matt's center. Matt sidesteps and closes his hand around the question.

 _No honestly, I know you were just pretending to be okay with it all. So I'm glad you're working it out through physical activity._ Matt's throw back is understanding. Smarmy.

Suddenly, Foggy can't help himself. _Fuck you_. This time the throw is at Matt's head.

 _No._ The next one directed at his stomach.

 _You don't get to stagger in my window at four a.m bleeding like a pig and then be understanding about my understanding to my face, in my office, looking like a fucking normal fuck in a suit_ Foggy throws so sharply the ball makes an audible swish through the air, and Matt frowns when he catches it.

His palm stings exactly like when Sister Flavia would rap it with a wooden ruler for mouthing her off. Abruptly, he feels like Foggy was there in the classroom with him at thirteen, glaring from the back benches. He tosses it back with his mouth parted a little in genuine confusion.

_Where do you think you get off, understanding me better than myself you paragon of sympathy, you fucker I have blood on the windowsill that won't come off, Matt, I worry_

Foggy's anger doesn't make him fumble. It just makes him frighteningly accurate. For a second Matt considers not throwing the ball back. But he does. The next throw actually curves (in that small office space, amazing) and it slams Matt hard on the shin. It bounces off his leg and rolls under Foggy's desk. Suddenly the room is loud with the sound of breathing.

Matt's ears pick up the distinct sound of Karen's jangling keychain as she rummages in her bag walking up the stairs. In the split second it took him to angle his head to hear her better, Foggy has turned around, his back a stiff line of resentment. Matt opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it. He won't start a fight. ( _He_ won't.)

 

 --


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy has other friends. No, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly longer. 
> 
> (Also fair warning, I do not know how phones work for blind people. I extrapolated from what I saw on the show, so if I messed up, please let me know.)

Spring touches every grimy corner of Hell's Kitchen, and Foggy loves it as intensely as he's ever loved anything. The two succulents Zoe mailed him last week are sitting happily on the sill of the only south-facing window in his flat, and he gave up on identifying them after he fell down a Google hole after typing in "I have these fat little plants" in the search box. Two hours and several minutes later he'd been goggling at videos of people grafting cactuses onto cactuses thinking _holy shit that's so badass_ and in the end he just settled for leaving his new plants as they were, unlabelled.

They're growing into their new home, though, Foggy likes to think. For now things are not too shabby. He didn't fight with Matt, which he's proud of himself for. The anger bled out of him like it always does and he felt slightly guilty for having slipped up so badly, pelting the ball at him like that. Wait it out, Nan said. Always wait the angry out or you'll do something you'll regret.

But he's got a handle on it now, he decides, flipping his omelette like a boss. It lands perfectly. Matt always used to say Foggy's omelettes made him want to sin and Foggy would always say some version _as if you are even capable of sinning without bursting into flames_ and Matt'd stuff his face and chew as loudly as he could. Foggy would be lying if he says he doesn't miss it. The old days. When things between Matt and him were simple, concrete, obvious. Matt was his best friend, brother, even. Extension of his own body. Matt-and-Foggy (one unit), one mind, one -

He doesn't _want_ to be thinking about this right now, but something Zoe said on the phone's still nagging at him.

"Fog, I know you guys are, like, joined in eternal bro-matrimony or whatever but I hope you remember I warned you not to put all your eggs in one basket. Not that I don't absolutely _adore_ Matt but c'mon. You guys live together -  
   
"Used to. Live together".  
  
"- work together, hang out together - there's bound to be friction and honestly, it isn't worth it if it affects your practice -"  
  
Foggy made a squawk of protest. "You know it's not about the practice"  
   
"Then tell me what it is about. _Just_. Tell me! You've never been so fucking hedgy all your life, it just isn't like you!"  
  
"It's ...personal." He can almost hear his sister rolling her eyes over the connection.

 "Foggy. As if. We even went through the _are-you-sure-you're-not-gay-for-Matt_ phase."  
  
"I don't know what to tell you. Whatever issues he's having are not my place to tell, okay."

 "The stop fucking whining every day! Its driving me a little nuts, I gotta be honest."

Foggy falls silent. "Sorry."

Zoe softens. She exhales a long breath before saying "Look, Foggy. You know you're calling me because this is _so_ you. You're probably feeling angry at him about something but you're also too guilty to do anything drastic so you come to me, and you hope that I'm gonna talk you into whatever it is you really wanna do -"  
  
"I never!"

"Every time. Fog. Every. Time. We talked about this last Christmas when Matt wasn't there. I'm not saying you're a complete wuss! I'm not."

"Then?"  
  
"You're... squeamish about looking like the bad guy. In any situation. That's why you didn't break up with Dana for four years. That's why you always take the fall when someone makes you."  
  
Zoe's right. Her words rang with the uncomfortable clarity of insight, and Foggy lost all steam. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he confessed, "I don't know what to - where to go from here?"

"Aww, Foggles. Its okay. Just do what's right before doing what's loyal."

He'd considered it then, and he considers it now, just telling Zoe that Matt Murdock - beloved of the Nelson clan - was Daredevil. _The._ That he was a vigilante. That Matt was the same guy that made Nana shake her head and talk about how kids these days were so prone to shooting up people they didn't like. If Foggy could just lay the problem at Zoe's feet, maybe she'd just tell him what to do. And wouldn't that be so very him _._

Instead he decides to go visit somebody. He _does_ have friends other than Matt, and he used to meet them semi-regularly till he got into Landman and Zack and started living and working with Matt and pretty much gave up making an effort to socialise with anybody _but_ Matt, who snored a little and who made faces when his socks started to smell. But last year, he'd gone to Jordan's party and ended up meeting the old gang. The Chelsea Prep Cheetahs, they used to call the softball team. (He still has a cap that Matt swears up and down smells only of Axe and hairspray)

Foggy can't complain about school, honestly. He'd more or less fit in; he played softball and all his friends had siblings who were friends with his siblings and so on. It was a like a village of people that seemed to know Foggy without him introducing himself, and he was never really just himself. Pre-law was a breath of fucking fresh air. He could finally say 'Hey I'm Foggy!" and not be met with "Oh, I know, you're Anne/Harris/Zoe/Bryce's brother, _Frank_." In Loudonville and then Columbia, he was anonymous. He grew out his hair, and an awful goatee and nobody gave a shit. And everyone called him Foggy.

(To be honest, he's not sure why he's doing this. Maybe he should just call Matt and ask if he's free to- _oh, yeah_ ). 

Pulling up his laptop, he scrolls all the way down his Facebook timeline to the photos of Joe's party at some bar in downtown Manhattan. Tilting the screen back he squints a little at it. Wow. He should've untagged himself from these, he looks awful. In the next five minutes he's texted Joe and Stephanie (because he accidentally-on-purpose decided he was too bored by the rest of them more than it was worth pretending _not to be_ ).

Stephanie texts back immediately. She and her girlfriend were thinking of coming to the new bento place in West Village but the girlfriend couldn't make it apparently. If Foggy could be there in an hour they could catch up (followed by at least two emojis Foggy's never seen before). She's gonna check if Joe can be there too.

 _YAy!_ he texts back.

\--

The new station at 34th Street doesn't look new anymore. It's slid into depressing urban familiarity, like everything touched by the grimy hands of Hell's Kitchen. A busker has a cat sitting in his empty guitar case, watching all the passengers with its luminous green eyes, and Foggy bends down to give its ears a scratch. As he waits against a pillar lazily graffitied by some bored office worker in biro, the metalic screech of the wheels reaches him long before the train does. A stale gust of wind rushes at his hair. Matt hates the subway. _I_ _t's too much_ , Matt grumbled. _Noise_ , he clarified, pointing at his ears. Now that Matt can parkour wherever he wants, Foggy figures that leaves him free of the shackles of overwhelming public transport. He'd probably... sprint to Manhattan or something.

Foggy knows he's being ridiculous, he does. But he doesn't know the full extent of Matt's abilities yet. So far he has cold, hard, visual evidence that Matt can scale a ten-storey building in a few minutes. That he can hear a mouse fart from the other side of the room, and tell Foggy's off-brand cereal from the other end of the phone line. So maybe it isnt such an exaggeration to think he can bend metal or fly. Honestly, how much does he _really_ know about Matt, really? The subway curves, and Foggy helplessly swings to the side. Calculating in his head, he adds up the years and the lives Matt has been living ~~without Foggy.~~

Matt's been keeping up the martial arts since he was eleven. He's possessed the skill sets that make him Daredevil since he was nine. When Foggy was stewing in mediocrity, Matt was learning to read Braille in a boxing ring. Years and years stretch into Matt's past where Foggy never crossed paths with him, but Foggy hates himself for how he can't imagine a life without Matt. He's a sucker for a good story, and he remembers the first few weeks in Columbia, fascinated by the boy from the newspapers, who was magically his really hot, blind roommate. His best friend. When did that happen? And how on earth did Foggy mess up so badly that he couldn't ever backtrack from not having asked him out? Sometimes, when Matt wasn't aware, Foggy would idly watch him navigate the room with fluid grace, imagining what he saw. Whether he could really tell what  ~~Foggy~~ people looked like. 

Its not like he hasn't thought about it; his parallel universe timeline, where he casually takes Matt's elbow after class and says something along the lines of  "Hey, remember when I kinda freaked out over complimenting you?" And Matt would say "---", and Foggy would say something suave and basically, they'd date and then they'd break up (fundamental mismatch of hotness) and life would be ...different. He'd still be at Landman and Zack, drinking away his morals and watching the Devil of Hell's Kitchen on TV like everyone else. But that hadn't happened, had it? 

What had happened was this, staring glumly out of the blank subway windows that look out into the darkness, trying to get away from the fact that he's invested his entire life in someone who didn't even trust him enough. He misses not knowing in his gut that Daredevil isn't just some hobby for Matt. As time goes by, and Matt doesn't just drop it because Fisk is in jail, Foggy realises that Daredevil will always exist. If Matt stopped goign out at night, he'd still _have been Daredevil_ , somewhere on the inside. Not normal, not ordinary, not something Foggy could really handle. And if Daredevil doesn't need Foggy then what good is it at all?

Why did he let his world get so small?

\--

 

Stepping out into the sunshine in Manhattan, Foggy's a little overwhelmed by everything. Here he is, on a Sunday, when he wants to do nothing more than re-watch _Firefly_ in his pajamas and go back to unknowing Daredevil, meeting people he doesn't even like in an attempt to prove to himself that he has better things to do than hyperventilate about his law partner's alter ego.

Joe and Stephanie are huddled together on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. They fit into each other's gravity well, naturally bending away when the other moves forward, heads dipped together looking at something on Joe's phone. A laugh drifts towards him, and he feels ten again, rolling up to Joe's house on his hand-me-down skateboard. The feeling of deja vu passes and he concentrated on psyching himself up as we walks up to them. He's a fucking lawyer with his own practice. They nailed Wilson Fisk. He's made it on his own. They look up as he approaches, faces crinkling into smiles. 

"Hey, Frankie!" Joe calls out, drawing him in for a hug. Stephanie crowds around them both.

"Fraaaank!", she coos, stretching out his name like it's a slogan. He puts an arm around her, struck by how happy she looks. 

"Hello, old gremlin." She grins, and its full of teeth. Joe claps him on the shoulder, commenting on his long hair and how's he been and does he still have the jersey? They seem so enthused to see him he feels a little taken aback. Apparently, he's all everyone's been talking about for the last few months.

"Dude, you nailed half the PD and you put away Wilson Fisk, you're totally treating us today", Steph teases. Well okay, they're not horrible. Once they settle in, he thinks maybe he'll actually enjoy himself, and gets easily caught up into the flow of conversation. They dig away at their boxes, talking pleasantly. Foggy gets calamari, which Matt never lets him order because he swears he can smell how old and gross it gets. Joe's a real estate agent for a firm that somehow wasn't a part of Fisk's get-rich conglomerate, so he's happy the marketplace is back to being a slightly more equal shark tank. He drives a sensible car and has a girlfriend. _You remember Sarah, right?  Carlton High, she did Les Miserable with you in the ninth grade?_  He ahs and nods enthusiastically, even though he still has no idea. Steph is still with the design firm she founded and sports some seriously cool ink now.

Their conversation is all - _rem_ _ember when_ - and - _didn't you used to -_ and for the smallest flashes of time, Foggy does remember. They show him pictures and he does too, swiping past photos of Matt and Karen as hastily as he can to get to pictures of his family. Steph stops him from scrolling past a picture of Karen with an appreciative noise. "Aren't you already taken, Steph?" Foggy laughs. But the thought furrows his brow. Who really knows about Karen these days? She comes in and smiles at them and makes terrible coffee as she chivvies Matt and him along, but she slips into long, vacant silences so often its like she's having nightmares with her eyes wide open. 

"Yeah. I moved in with Layla last week", Steph grins, "But damn, your secretary's cute, Frank. As is this guy.  _Hello."_

Even Joe leans in to scrutinise the evidence. He purses his lips and nods, impressed. "Dude's built. Most lawyers these days seem to be. Is it really because all the lying and the scheming shreds your soul and your fat? Except with Frank."

Joe gives him a sideways look, and Foggy bristles. Even Zoe looks up, surprised. Foggy doesn't say anything.  _Of course you won't_ , says Zoe in his head. He's suddenly tired, and as he glances up at the faces of his childhood it strikes him that he's glad he doesn't miss them anymore. Everything they were and could be is already past, already done. And they keep calling him Frank, and he's _not Frank._ They idle for a couple of more hours, nursing some terrible Chinese wine before Joe excuses himself saying he needs to pick up a Sally or a Sarah. Hugs all around. He's still stinging a bit.

After Joe leaves, Steph leans in.  
  
"So," she starts.  
  
"Yeah?" Foggy asks.  
  
"Guess who I ran into the other day wandering in Hell's Kitchen and asking about youuu-"  
  
Foggy knows what's coming next, and that twists his face into a complicated expression.  
  
Steph swats him lightly for being unresponsive. "Daniel!"

Ah.

" _Daniel_ , Frank", she repeats with emphasis. "You know, he told me he just quit being a stockbroker and wants to open a restaurant? And he was all like _Where's Foggy? I know he lives around here, and do you have his numberrr_ and I was just thinking, remember what Debbie used to say about you becoming a butcher?"

"Yeah, okay give him my number, who cares?"

Steph waggles his eyebrows at him, and he shrugs in response.

"Fine, what about Lena? What happened to her?"

"We broke up, like, four month into it."

"Aww", Steph mourns. "So, like, do you have anybody in your life right now?"

"My ramshackle law practice Ah, she's a terrible cruel miss, she is, especially because I won't lavish her with a proper printer and a fancy coffee machine." He lays a mocking hand over his heart. Steph crooks a smile at him. "Okay, honestly, Steph. I'm not looking."

Just to get his point across Foggy lays a hand on Stephanie's arm to stop her from running away with this. She can't be serious. She doesn't even particularly care, he's sure, but he's sure he has a sign over his head that says "FRANKLIN NELSON, REALLY LONELY". His wine tastes weird, like the complete failure to mask his social yearning.

He wants out. Somehow he manages to turn the conversation around from his exes to how he really needs to get home because his neighbour - his blind neighbour - needs him to let him in the building because he forgot his keys, no, he always forgets his keys, he's _blind_ ahahaha. And he hates himself a lot as he extricates himself from the arms of the friend he used to smoke behind the bleachers with, and he looks at her and wonders what the fuck he's even doing here.

He wants Matt.

 

\-- 

 When he gets home, he sees he left the window open, but he's just in time to shut it as it starts to rain outside. He thumbs his phone for a while, worrying. Deciding against doing anything, he chucks it in the general direction of the couch. Then he changes and microwaves a hot pocket. Halfway through rewatching  _The Return of the King,_ he mutes the TV and fishes out the phone from between the couch cushions.

\--

Matt is crouched on  a fire escape on a dockyard office, slightly hypnotised by the regular squelching noise of the mud in the bay. His phone vibrates. No one's around, so he opens up the message. 

" **Foggy. 9.27 p.m."** The voice reads out. **"T** **ext message - _'You're right, I was mad at you then. Don't die tonight, I don't have any spares._ '" **

\--

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer than the one before.

 

It's too early at night to tell if Matt is done with Daredeviling yet, and too late for there to be the possibility that Matt is an innocent burrito on his couch. Which probably means Matt will get the text in-between punching a loan shark and swinging on the roof and oh my god, what if someone hears the electronic voice and realises it's _Matt_ \- Of course, Matt's too smart to do that. His text will probably go unnoticed till Matt's home, by which time Foggy will be mercifully asleep or at least legitimately in bed. He won't go to bed till, like, one. In case Matt decides to call back.

The phone sits burning a hole into the couch cushions with the kind of mental energy Foggy is focussing on it. Why'd he even send it? Matt hates texting, for obvious reasons. He just has so many regrets. _I don't have any spares._

He goes to get a beer only to discover he has none.  There's nothing in the cabinet either. Grimacing in frustration, he grabs his coat and heads out to the liquor store two blocks away. It's doing good business, so it's as crowded as a liquor store gets on a Sunday night. A group of young people clusters around the shadowed porch but one of them mutters "Oh shit", when Foggy steps under the neon lights and shuffles out of sight. Squinting a little after him, Foggy calls out, "Is that Fred? Dude, I'm not gonna tell her on you but your aunt might ground _me_ if she finds out!" The others titter.

 

Fred turned up at Nelson and Murdock last month with his very formidable aunt; some neighbours in their building had complained that Fred had left some broken bottles outside their flats and one of them had tripped and cut himself on it.

"Bullshit", scoffed Linda, sitting proprietorially in Matt's office, disdainfully dropping a crumpled envelope with a civil claim on his desk. "I know Fred's sneaking out at night and wastin' his life but he isn't mean. He's stupid and irresponsible, but his momma didn't raise him to get his kicks hurting people. Tell you what", she leaned in, her eyes glinting with intelligence, "Those folks moved in here about the same time as there was trouble over that other building, that Fisk fellow? I knew that lady that died, Elena Cardenas. They wanted the building. You know, like sue us so it's either pay up and leave the apartment or spend all our money in court and still be forced to leave. Ours is rent-controlled like Elena's was and they don't wanna try the same trick twice so they're trying to get civil action lawsuits against us.". Foggy barely restrained himself from raising his eyebrows, impressed. She caught him. "What? You think just cuz a lady work at the deli she can't have book smarts? "

"No ma'am." 

"Well, in any case I came here because I know you won't scam me."  
  
Matt cleared his throat."Not at all, Mrs Gutman, in fact we do a lot of _pro_ -" He caught Foggy's widening eyes - "Um, we're - professional but we don't charge exorbitantly."

Foggy scribbled a nominal figure on a notepad and slid it across to Mrs Gutman. She looked over shrewdly at him with a half-smile. "I'm glad. Any lawyer that does this kinda work _pro bono_ probably doesn't care or do a good job. This, I can pay", she nodded. He ignored the little squiggle in Matt's brow in favour of beaming at her. A few weeks later they got the motion dismissed and Fred showed up at the office one evening, mumbling and embarrassed, pushing a casserole into Karen's hands. _Pro-bono Casserole_ , said a post-it note stuck to the lid. Karen gave a chortle.

Matt and Nelson's word-of-mouth network of clients is growing, even if that means Foggy getting recognised by really embarrassed teenagers who scamper at the sight of him.

Foggy picks up an 8-pack and a bottle of Schnapps (Matt likes Schnapps) and stands in the short queue. He's zoned out a little when the guy behind him pointedly clears his throat, followed by a tap on his shoulder. "You that fellow from the office on 17th Street?"

 

"Huh?"

 

"The lawyer. You know, the guy that got Fisk?"

 

"Oh. We're two guys, but yeah. That's us, Nelson and Murdock." He puts down his stuff to fish a card out of his wallet and hands it to the guy. The man looks down blankly at it, which Foggy finds weird considering his curiosity a moment ago. Slowly, the guy looks up at him with a fixed, shark-like smile. "Well, now I know your phone number."

 

Foggy nods awkwardly .

  
One a block down, cradling his bottles in the crook of his elbow, he realises he doesn't have his wallet. "Oh shoot", he mutters, spinning on his heel to go back to the store, only to run straight into a knife that goes into his chest.

  
There's only enough time to stare, shocked, into the eyes of the man from the liquor store before he slides wordlessly to his knees. The breath goes out of him in a whoosh. I cannot believe this is happening, he repeats to himself, over and over, while tipping over sideways. Breathing shallow and fast, Foggy deliberately turns his head to notice the man checking up and down the street for people. He fishes a phone out of his hoodie while he grabs hold of Foggy by the collar and drags him into the nearest alley with one hand while dialling someone.

 

It feels hot all over his front, it blooms all over his chest, stomach, his eyes - time passes in slow motion. His assailant bends down to look at him in the faint glow of the streetlights.

 

"They told me to take the knife out. That way you bleed out quick and I can just toss it in the river."

 

Foggy knows he's mouthing some faint version of _wait, but why_ and _no, don't_ and then the guy grabs and pulls. _Oh god oh god oh god oh god_. There's blood coming out of him, and he realises that every time he breathes there's a weird noise coming from his mouth. Burbling. A car goes past. Foggy realises he's half-hidden behind a dumpster and it's cold, it's just _really_ cold which is weird for spring before it hits him that this is what it's like to bleed to death.

 

\--

  

The first feeling he registers upon struggling to consciousness is a dull ache throughout his body. Cotton mouth. His eyes keep banging shut like heavy doors and everything smells like iron.

 

 "Hmph", he manages to say.

 

Someone comes over and pulls his bottom eyelids down and shines a light into his eyes. It burns his brain.

The next time he wakes up there's a tight squeeze around his forearm followed by a whoosh. The grip loosens and he stays quiet. A woman is sitting right by his side, stethoscope plugged into her ears as she checks his blood pressure. Relief. Recognition.

 

"M-burnerpho-"

 

"I'm the Night Nurse, Mr. Nelson, and you're going to survive this", she says quietly, looking straight at him. Foggy trusts her, remembers steady hands stitching up Matt's wounds. Instead of saying thank you he closes his eyes.

 

\--

 

Foggy realises it was Matt who brought him to Hottie McBurnerphone's house the second he properly comes to without immediately passing out again. She's bending over him with her hair in a bun and an alert look on her face.

 

"Matt", he croaks. "'s Matt -ere?"

 

"Yeah he just went to the drugstore. I forged a prescription". Foggy took a moment to study her, and himself, and this entire situation. He is lying on a sofa that'd been open opened up into a bed. It's new; smells new. She catches him squinting at the headrest.

 

"I got it online after I decided my old pleather couch just wasn't gonna cut it for Mr. Martyr there. Lucky for you, I guess", she adds.

 

"Why'm I here-m not the hospital?" Foggy asks, then hisses when he tries to shift a little.

 

She cocks her head at him, observing carefully but content to let him test his own limits. "Matt thinks the guys that put out a hit on you would probably be checking the admission and discharge lists and they'd probably get to you. Somehow. He insists he can guard us both here". Foggy's still fuzzy but he can sense the eye-roll.

 

She gets up and moves around the flat, doing things Foggy can't see. Her voice drifts over to him. "Oh, and he said your flat was broken into."

 

Foggy makes a pained gasp. _His laptop_. _His things!_

 

"Don't worry, he said nothing was taken. They were just looking for you." She reappears, holding a pouch of coconut water and a couple of pills. "Here. Take these. Did you know you had a collapsed lung?"

 

Foggy looks up into her tired face and can't think of an appropriate response. Respons _es_ , sure. Questions tumble through his muddy brain in quick succession, but as he drinks he realises how exhausted he feels. _Do you run this place like an operating theatre? Where do you keep all the bandages and where do you throw all your trash? Have you ever accidentally killed anyone? Do you need a lawyer I'm a lawyer -_ The questions roll over each other, getting confused as his eyes blink drowsily.

 

Before he fully goes under again she asks him a few basic questions and makes sure he's had the pills.

 

\--

 She is really, really pretty. Totally Matt's type, which is every woman outside Foggy's league. The last time he saw her (which was also the first time he saw her) she was barely holding in the same combination of fury and fear he was feeling, but instead of manifesting itself in scowling and kicking Matt's furniture, hers vanished the second she held a needle in her hands. You gotta admire that kind of clear-headedness, Foggy remembers thinking at the time, peering over her shoulder while she sewed together the flaps of skin all over Matt's body that looked like bloody mouths. _She's the kind of person you'd call at 3 am when your life is utterly falling apart. Or someone else's life has fallen apart._ Clearly Matt thinks so too.

\--

 

Being stabbed and subsequently rendered immobile is no fun. There are ...bedpans involved. He grabs hold of Hottie McBurnerphone's hand when she goes to ease off his pyjamas and says firmly, "My name is Foggy Nelson. And you are?"

 

She glares half-heartedly for a second before giving in with a sigh. "Claire Temple. This was all Matt's idea anyway, stupid secret identities. I dunno, it helps him pretend that his life isn't _really_ a clusterfuck. Let's get those pants off now because it's not like I didn't do it before when you were half-awake."

 

"Great. So excited."

 

He gets a wry smile in return as Claire quips, "Hubba hubba."

 

"Thank you", Foggy suddenly remembers to say. It's the next day or maybe just a few hours later, he really can't tell. Save for a lamp somewhere behind his head the flat seems to be permanently darkened. Quiet. It helps calm the burning ache across his sternum much more than the sterile white lights of the hospital he'd been in the last time he got a shrapnel wound. From his supine position he can't see much, except that the flat is small despite its scrupulous neatness.

 

"Wait a minute", he starts with dawning realisation. "Weren't you at the hospital the night the bombs went off? I brought someone in, that's why you looked so familiar that time - that time at Matt's place." Foggy's winded by the time he finishes saying this much.

 

She looks at him levelly as if to say _Yeah, I know_.  Something about her lack of sentimentality is deeply reassuring.

 

Foggy nods. Matt probably does this all the time. Probably came to her place after Foggy yelled at him last week for opening up his window and bleeding all over his kitchen counter. _I shouldn't have done that, I -_

 

"She died, by the way. The woman I brought in after the bombings. Mrs Cardenas." He's not sure why he says that.

 

Claire widened her eyes. "What? How? She just had a cut!"

 

"Heard of Wilson Fisk and the real-estate mafia?"

 

"Oh. Shit, I'm sorry." Her face crumpled into a mask of concern. "Sanders was in charge of her, I remember."

 

"She was also one of our clients. Clued us in to the whole thing. Fed me and Karen dinner once."

 

"Ah, the secretary."

 

He doesn't remark on that. It twigs something funny in his head though, the thought that Matt is talking about him and Karen to this woman, but never the other way around. She's a comrade. Foggy-and-Karen - they're Life On The Outside. He instinctively tries to resent Claire for that but her direct manner makes it impossible to. Also the fact that she saved his fucking life; he is forever indebted to her. So Foggy resents Matt instead.

Foggy's peripherally aware that Matt visits, but he always manages to do it when Foggy's fast asleep, thanks to his spidey senses. _Jerk._ Try as he might, Foggy can't dispel the sense of hurt and outrage that puzzles him, especially as his brain starts to get less fuzzy from the veritable cocktail of drugs he's been taking. (There are eleven pills. Also a couple of injections every six hours, he counted) Why won't Matt see Foggy?

 

He decides to gather more information before he gets properly angry. Seeing Claire tapping away at her laptop in her bedroom through her half-ajar door, Foggy asks, "Hey how long have I been here, anyway?"

 

Claire looks up distractedly for a moment from the screen. "Hmm?"

 

"Has it been two days? Three? A week?"

 

"A little short of sixty hours, I think -" she checks her phone - "yeah."

 

He gives a low whistle, and tries to sit up by himself. _Nope. Nope. Big mistake._ The pain is blinding, how does Matt even manage?

 

"Where is he anyway?" Foggy snaps, the combination of anger and simmering hurt suddenly coming to the fore.

 

"I knew this would happen," Claire scoffs to herself. Abandoning her email, she unfolds from the bed and pads over to Foggy. She quickly checks his vitals before she admits "He's around. Like, all the time. Basically whenever you're asleep - "

 

"Yeah, I figured. Fucker. Probably does that creepy heartbeat listening thing", he interrupts. "The only question is why?"

 

Claire tucks away a strand of hair behind her ear as she sighs. "Man, I don't know. He refuses to tell me, and frankly it's fucking annoying. You guys have some shit going on?"

 

"Well, not really. At least not now, I think."

 

She makes an exasperated gesture.

 

"I did send a risky text though, " Foggy adds, looking at Claire from under his eyebrows.

 

She goggles at him as if he just told her that he's going to do a flip. "What?"

 

There's nothing to do but backtrack, the idea sounds juvenile and preposterous when he said it out loud, anyway. "It can't _be_ that, obviously I guess it's because he's probably out there trying to beat the guy to a pulp that did this. He's nice like that."

 

Claire doesn't look like she's buying this, and she says as much. "Foggy that guy's been worked over the day of. The day _of_ , I tell you, so Matt's vengeance run is over. He's avoiding you and he won't tell me what he's out there doing, and I haven't been to work in three days, dammit!"

 

Foggy feels guilty. Claire has literally gone above and beyond her calling, she's saved his life and also, he knows, a fortune in medical bills. He wonders how she manages to keep him flush with antibiotics and other medicines at all? He rushes to say "It's fine. Honestly. Listen, let's not talk about it. What day is today?" He counts in his head. "Oh, it's a Wednesday! Where's my phone."

 

"The guy that stabbed you took it at first; Matt did find it but it'd been stripped so it's just a shell. It's right there", she adds, jerking her thumb at a dresser beside the door.

 

Foggy feels the colour go out of his face. "Claire, my texts. I - Daredevil! Matt, Claire. _Daredevil_."

 

No.

 

"Oh", Claire breathes, comprehending, all the fire gone out of her. She stares blankly ahead. "Your phone." She swivels her head to look at the incriminating thing on her dresser and thoughts flit across her face too quickly for Foggy to parse. "So that's why Matt won't let me out. I thought it was some other shit, maybe, maybe some - nonsense guilt trip." She scrubs a hand over her mouth, seemingly unaffected, but her hands are shaking.

 

Foggy puts his face into his hands, breathing deeply. _Fuck._ His brain is suddenly going a mile a minute, thinking about what the fuck they're gonna do- Claire, Matt, him, Karen, even fucking Brett.

Claire sits down next to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. She looks resolved, like she has an inner well of strength that she reaches down and recharges herself from. "Now I've finally figured out why I am currently at home and not in the ER on a weekday. Matt-enforced curfew, and not because the perp's out there. He's terrified out of his mind and mostly about us, I think." She carefully rubs his back in circles, practiced and unhurried. She glances at Foggy. "Do not breathe with your mouth open, you're on the verge of hyperventilating."

 

Foggy clangs his jaws shut. He's still panicking and feels horribly lightheaded.

 

"Claire I am so, so deeply sorry."

 

She stops rubbing his back and says nothing.

 

They sit in silence for a while, not touching, and Foggy feels the walls of her flat closing in upon him in spasms of fear. After a while he croaks - "Family?"

 

"No."

 

He hates himself for asking "Um, did Matt -? My sister Zoe; she kinda calls often. These days."

 

"I don't know."

 

"Okay." He has to think a way out of this with Matt. _Oh, Matt._

 

She gets up to go.

 

"Claire, I'm really sorry. Really. You've done so much, and I feel so stupid."

 

She bites her lip and her eyes dart to every corner of the flat, searching for something to say. She gives up eventually. "This sucks a whole lot more than I signed up for. But okay, apology accepted.'

 

She suddenly turns back around to say, "Who the hell gives out the fact that Matt is Daredevil over their _phone_?" She shakes her head in disappointment.

 

"I - I didn't mention it explicitly, I just. I said 'Don't die tonight'."

She considers this for a moment. "Okay." Claire undoes her bun and does it up again, seemingly out of a need to do something with her hands. "Okay, so it isn't maybe as bad as the two of us think it is. Matt needs to explain himself. Meanwhile, I'm gonna call a friend." She disappears into her room, dialling someone and time closing the door behind her, but not before Foggy hears "Hey, Jessica?"

 

\--

 

 


End file.
